Second Life

Things about SL

Dolphin Viewer 3 Version 3.0.3.20418 Review

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Another third party viewer (TPV) releases a mesh capable viewer. Dolphin 3 Viewer is the latest. See the announcement on the Dolphin Viewer blog.

The article lists the features now in Dolphin Viewer 3. Some are features that have been in the SLViewer 2 and 3 for a time. Some are Dolphin features not in the SLViewer. The current combination of features makes Dolphin Viewer 3 one of more feature rich power-user viewers.

BIG TIP for Blocked Login

I’ve seen a number of people complaining about not being able to login. This is a problem thought to be in the Linden Lab code for version 3 viewers, basically mesh capable viewers. Once one runs into the problem it seems to be very difficult to get around it and get logged in. This problem is not Dolphin Viewer problem. It is an SL problem.

Lance provides a work around for the problem. He suggests logging in with a non-mesh viewer. Once logged in, you can log out and come back with mesh enabled viewer. Why this works probably has something to do with the mesh up load enablement flags, but that is a guess on my part.

Mesh Render Capable

The Dolphin Viewer 3 will render mesh. It will not allow you to upload mesh. Uploading requires a special set of calculations handled by the Havok Physics Engine. A TPV developer must purchase a license from Havok to use the same software the Lab licensed from Havok and uses.

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Kirsten Viewer Stops Development

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KirstenLee announced that due to health issues within the RL family, development on the Kirsten Viewer will stop.

You can read the announcement here: Sad Farewell

Image by: migasun of Flickr

The end of the Kirsten Viewer is a great disappoint for many of us. The Kirsten Viewer has been the cutting edge viewer. It built on Linden Lab technology. It has better renders and dynamic shadows than the Lab’s viewers. That cutting edge is gone.

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Electricity

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I am one of those caught in the Great Southwest Blackout. Obviously I have power back.

It was interesting to start to realize what had happened. Being September and close to 9-11 concerns ran through my mind as the scope of the outage was revealed.

At home it was just power out. In the middle of the Beta Server User Group meeting chat stopped and my avatar was stuck in place. Then my battery backup alarm went off. Time to shutdown the computer. No big deal.

Went out to check the meter and look around to see if it was just me or the neighborhood. Neighbors were out checking there breakers and meters. My power comes in along an arterial street and it is not uncommon for traffic accidents to take out power for several hours. So, on a hot after noon (98F – 37C) it is time to get out and find some place with AC running and cold drinks.

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Second Life Web Profile Features

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You probably know by now that an avatar’s in-world profile and web profile are the same web page. You may not have realized people see different presentations of you profile depending on your profile’s settings and whether they are logged into SL or not. You also may not have noticed that the avatar profile system is getting more features. Opensource Obscure has an interesting post listing features that people are interested in.

Current list of suggestions for web profiles feeds / my.secondlife.com

Web Profile as Seen by Public

There are several feature requests and bug reports that Obscure links to. If you are interested in those, click VOTE and WATCH. Clicking WATCH is the more import click, if you want Linden Lab to place more priority on it.

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Firestorm Viewer Mesh Beta

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The Firestorm/Phoenix Team is releasing a mesh capable viewer. However, the Internet connection to their site is having problems. A main trunk line was cut by some kind of construction. It should be repaired sometime Thursday. So, if you have trouble getting to the site, don’t freak.

Information about the Firestorm Mesh Viewer 3.0.1.22525 is on the blog site, if you can get to it. I find the site a little slow, but working. The download came down without a problem.

Problems

Jessica tells us that under normal circumstances they would not be releasing a viewer with this many problems. But, the demand for a mesh version of the viewer is so high, they decided to release it bugs and all. There are some serious bugs. Read the bug list in the wiki. Hot LL JIRA Issues Of The Day. These are serious problems as in Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) serious. So, read the list before you decide to install it.

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#SL Beta Server User Group Week 35

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As with the Sim User Group, things are a bit mundane right now. That are a few interesting things that came up in the user meeting.

Two second lags… some people are seeing short lags where the viewer sort of freezes up. One fix that has been suggested is to change the Debug Settings value for curlUseMultipleThreads. Because of some crash issues the default value is FALSE. Some say changing this to TRUE solved the mini freeze/lag problem. Try it at your own risk.

Curl typically requires a connection for each thread, afaik. So, setting curlUseMultipleThreads true may increase your number of connections. Some user modems can only handle a limited number of NAT connections. One can try to reduce the maximum number HTTP Texture Get connections to offset the cURL increase.

One of the changes rolled to the main grid was the ability for regions to detect users with Premium Accounts. That is needed for the new enhancements to premium membership. Oskar hints that other benefits than just the two announced for premium membership are coming.

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